Recently, US Vice President JD Vance kicked off a theological debate on social media with a series of comments defending President Trump’s executive orders targeting migrants and overseas aid. ‘There is a Christian concept that you love your family, and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that’, he said during a Fox News interview. As the comments sparked off debate on social media, he later added, ‘Just google “ordo amoris”’.
Understandably, a number of theologians came forward on social media to respond to Vance’s comments, in thoughtful but mostly critical ways. One might draw on ‘ordo amoris’ (the order of our love) talk about how our loving actions might be prioritised as part of our response to a loving God (our first priority). But to focus solely on our individual relationships is to ignore a whole realm of Catholic teaching that explores social relationships, and that’s before we explore how that teaching applies to relationships between states.
Ultimately, as one writer pointed out, turning love into something calculated and conditional takes us away from what’s important: ‘If we find ourselves asking, “Who is my neighbour?” – we are already missing the point. The better question is: How do I love without limits?”’
The debate itself might seem small given what’s happening more broadly in the wake of Trump’s second presidency. However, there are aspects of the discussion that highlight some concerning things about the relationship between religion and the broader political currents at work in the world today.
It’s worth noting that if one followed Vance’s suggestion and went to google ‘Ordo Amoris’, they would find it difficult to find thoughtful critiques of his words. When I searched for the term a couple of days after the original post I found a page of results which included the following headlines: ‘JD Vance States the Obvious About Ordo Amoris’, ‘JD Vance is Right About the ‘Ordo Amoris’’, ‘Defending JD Vance’s Ordo Amoris’. I was three pages into the search results before I came across a clear critique, ‘Theologians push back on JD Vance’s view of ‘ordered love’’, from a Baptist website.
'Despite what Vance might argue, it’s the tech industry that has done more to turn ‘Ordo Amoris’ on its head. Social media platforms have changed who people see as their “neighbour” in almost irrevocable ways.'
Websites for Christian publications may tend to struggle under Google’s algorithms (at least, that’s our experience at Eureka Street), but one might also wonder the extent to which Google's algorithms are being influenced by the tech magnates driving the agenda of his new government. Google’s CEO was among a number of tech leaders at the inauguration, after the company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Facebook has rolled back its fact-checking and political censorship as a response to Trump, while Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter) is now an integral (if informal) part of the administration with his ‘Department of Government Efficiency’. There’s a clear alignment between the goals of Silicon Valley tech magnates and the goals of the new Trump administration. How much can people then trust the information infrastructure we’ve come to rely on for our information about the world?
Tech billionaires have proven to be unfriendly towards religious voices that challenge their worldviews. While Elon Musk has called himself a ‘cultural Christian’, he has also been leading the way in demonising religious groups that receive aid from the government to run programs for the vulnerable. Catholic and Lutheran charities have drawn his specific ire, and are among the many organisations that are have had all funding cut off (indeed Catholic Relief Services was the largest recipient of funding from USAID – an organisation Musk described as ‘criminal’). Church leaders who protest have been accused of caring more about the money than the people they serve – even as those making the cuts make it clear they don’t care about those people either.
Other tech billionaires have been building strong connections with more conservative Church organisations. Former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel is one of Trump’s largest financial supporters and a founder of data analytics company Palantir. He provided seed funding for the Hallow app, a prayer site which platforms a number of conservative Christian voices. Concerns have been raised about the site’s privacy policy, which apparently allows it to share data with its investors – something that perhaps may have gotten it in trouble with European Union regulators in recent days. Either way, the app has been downloaded by more than 22 million people worldwide, making it an extremely valuable resource for those wishing to promote a particular worldview to Christian communities.
Despite what Vance might argue, it’s the tech industry that has done more to turn ‘Ordo Amoris’ on its head. Social media platforms have changed who people see as their “neighbour” in almost irrevocable ways. Their algorithms have made people hate family members who disagree with them, driven attacks on minority members of the community, deepened political divides among the citizenry, and they are now attacking efforts to help the most vulnerable communities globally. Beyond that, tech oligarchs are now trying to destroy those aspects of religion that might stand against their interests in furthering their own wealth, and drive people to ‘on-side’ religious platforms that will only reinforce their own privileged place in the world.
I’d suggest you go to Google to find out more information about that, but I’m not sure you can trust what you’d find.
Michael McVeigh is Head of Publishing and Digital Content at Jesuit Communications.
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